PHP - Remove all tabs from string

Question

I am able to remove all single tabs from a string:

// Copying and pasting the tab directly
$txt = str_replace("    ", "", $txt);

This only removes single tabs, but not double tabs. I then tried this, thinking that "\t" would be sufficient to find the tabs:

$txt = preg_replace('/\t/', '', $txt);

However, it didn't work. Can anyone offer something better?

possible duplicate of [remove multiple whitespaces in php](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2326125/remove-multiple-whitespaces-in-php) — Kermit, Jan 29 '13 at 16:02
I'm not the best with RegExp but you can specify 1 tab or more with + sign — poudigne, Jan 29 '13 at 16:02
There seems to be a misunderstanding, the question is related to the `| |` (tab) character but `| |` (4 spaces) characters were supplied in the example code. Since the source `$txt` value that was causing the issue was not provided, we can't verify the issue. The original code would have removed double tabs as 8 spaces as well, so seems OP may be wanting something like [`preg_replace('/\t| {4}/', '', $txt);`](https://3v4l.org/XcEAW) to replace either tab or 4 spaces together, the `+` is not needed unless start `^` or end `$` of pattern is also used. — Will B., Mar 27 '23 at 22:33

score 78 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 18 '13 at 19:00

78

trim(preg_replace('/\t+/', '', $string))

answered Jun 18 '13 at 19:00

Zamicol

2

Although similar to the post by Mr. Alien (which did not work), this one worked. – SamV Aug 07 '13 at 16:21
Watch out, the `trim()` part removes empty lines in the string if they appear in the beginning or the end. – Avatar Nov 14 '22 at 08:30
Yes, you can just do `preg_replace('/\t+/', '', $string)`, but I typically found it useful to remove leading and ending white space as well. – Zamicol Nov 14 '22 at 17:58

Mr. Alien · Answer 2 · 2013-01-29T16:14:44.913

11

Try using this regular expression

$string = trim(preg_replace('/\t/g', '', $string));

This will trim out all tabs from the string ...

edited Jan 29 '13 at 16:14

answered Jan 29 '13 at 16:02

Mr. Alien

1

A tab is white space; but white space isn't always a tab – Mark Baker Jan 29 '13 at 16:03
@MarkBaker According to you I should remove the `g` part? – Mr. Alien Jan 29 '13 at 16:05
3

no, the g part has absolutely no meaning.... I'm saying that \s includes spaces as well as tabs; OP is specifically asking about tabs – Mark Baker Jan 29 '13 at 16:09
@MarkBaker Ya I got it, I thought you are telling me to remove the global – Mr. Alien Jan 29 '13 at 16:11
1

The `g` flag does not exist in PHP's PCRE implementation. The replace is always performed globally. Your solution as-is doesn't work! – Zuul May 19 '15 at 12:14
This throws an error in php 7.3: "preg_replace(): No ending delimiter '/' found" – Matt Aikens Sep 10 '20 at 15:32

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 11 '14 at 13:48

7

this will remove all tabs in your variable $string

preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $string);

answered Sep 11 '14 at 13:48

Amani Ben Azzouz

3

Wouldn't this just remove all spaces from a string as well? – scrowler Apr 07 '15 at 00:32
`\s` is a shorthand for `[\t\r\n\f]`. It matches **new line**, **return** and **form feed** as well as **tabulator**. – Martin Schneider Nov 26 '15 at 10:14
replace any white space [\t\r\n\f] with single space, preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', trim($string)); – zzapper Dec 20 '17 at 12:15

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 19 '17 at 20:36

4

trim(preg_replace('/[\t|\s{2,}]/', '', $result))

Removes all tabs, including tabs created with multiple spaces

answered Jan 19 '17 at 20:36

Mirko Pagliai

This also removes all regular spaces as well. i added a space between the single quotes and that worked perfectly for me. It replaced all tabs, spaces, etc with a single space. I was trying to get text into a csv. I needed to strip out all of the tabs, double spaces and whatever because it was triggering a new column. This worked for me. trim(preg_replace('/[\t|\s{2,}]/', ' ', $result)) – Robbiegod Aug 31 '18 at 13:30

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered May 19 '20 at 11:35

3

$string = trim(preg_replace('/\t/', '', $string));

This works for me. Remove the g of @Mr. Aliens answer.

answered May 19 '20 at 11:35

levi-jcbs

5 Answers5